Half-uninstalled Instance causing Issues

Question

We were uninstalling an instance of Adaxes that half uninstalled (no longer in add/remove programs, but non-working service still present on the machine).

I have tried installing again so we can do a clean uninstall but no luck (it gets past the 'you must uninstall' but fails to install as it says the LDS instance name is already in use).

The instance was the FSMO and I am unable to promote another server in the cluster as we get the error 'the role owner attribute could not be read'.

Can you advise how best to ensure this instance is cleanly deleted and another instance is the FSMO

Answer 1

Hello,

During installation of Adaxes, the AdaxesBackend instance of AD LDS is created. To remedy the issue, manually remove the instance and seize the FSMO Master roles on another instance.
For information on how to perform an unattended removal of an AD LDS instance of Adaxes, have a look at the following article: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previo ... 5(v=ws.10). You need to specify AdaxesBackend as the instancename.

To seize the FSMO Master roles on another instance:

1. Log on to the computer that will be the new schema master as Adaxes default service administrator (the user that you specified when installing Adaxes).

2. Run the elevated command prompt.

3. At the command prompt, type dsmgmt and press Enter.

4. At the dsmgmt command prompt, type roles and then press Enter.

5. At the fsmo maintenance command prompt, type connections and then press Enter.

6. At the server connections command prompt, type the following and then press Enter:
   connect to server computername:portnumber

   where computername is the computer name of the instance to seize the master role, and portnumber is the Adaxes service backend port number.
   To get Adaxes service backend port number:

   • Launch Adaxes Administration Console.
   • In the Console Tree, right-click the service node and click Properties in the context menu.
     
   • The backend port will be displayed below the Check for updates button on the General tab.
     

7. At the server connections: command prompt, type quit and then press Enter.

8. At the fsmo maintenance: command prompt, type the following and then press Enter:
   seize schema master
   seize naming master

For information on how to unregister an Adaxes service manually, have a look at the following FAQ article https://www.adaxes.com/support_faq.htm#collapseNineteen.

By the way, could you provide us with information on how it was occurred that the service stayed registered after Adaxas was uninstalled?

Comments

Hi - apologies for not responding to your question at the time. Unfortunately I cannot remember exactly what happened, but I think we may have attempted the uninstall\reinstall with an account that didn't have the required permissions.

Also unfortunately while we got things working again over time we have had more and more issues, resulting in us having to try again as the LDS instance has stopped replicating.

We have removed all but a single server and have made sure it is the FSMO master. When trying to rebuild the cluster we are getting the following errors upon install:-

I have tried accessing the LDS instance using ADSI edit but cannot access the \Configuration container to see if I can find what the cause may be. Do you have any pointers on what we could check?

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Hello,

Thank you for the provided details. It is a known issue that if configuration is not replicated for a long time AD LDS eventually stops the replication totally. Unfortunately, there is no possibility to fix that on the fly. To remedy the issue, you need to do the following:

1. Backup your Adaxes configuration. For details, see https://www.adaxes.com/help/?HowDoI.Man ... ation.html.
2. Uninstall Adaxes.
3. Make sure that the instance of AD LDS was uninstalled. If necessary, remove it manually.
4. Install Adaxes and restore your configuration.
5. Remove all the existing Service Connection Points as described in the following FAQ article: https://www.adaxes.com/support_faq.htm#collapseNineteen.
6. Restart Softerra Adaxes Service.
7. Try to install Adaxes on another computer sharing common configuration with the instance you just installed.

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Thanks very much.

We actually managed - we think - to recover, but it did require extensive use of "dsmgmt" to get rid of some orphaned references to a replication partner in the LDS configuration, clean up the LDS metadata, re-enable inbound\outbound replication etc.

If we see issues again we'll follow your advice to backup, totally remove and re-install, but using the above we have got the LDS instance replicating again, can add new servers, and are seeing bi-directional synchronization.